6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

Reuniting old Cal State Long Beach teammate Jered Weaver, the Mariners have traded Jason Vargas for fifth wheel DH Kendrys Morales. Morales couldn't really hit lefties in 2012 (.229/.289/.471), though he did manage to do better earlier (career .250/.286/.416). On a typical late Scioscia-era team full of DH candidates who will need to rotate into that spot as a "day off" position, this move makes a ton of sense; it gives the Angels some much needed rotation depth, if mothing else, and makes someone like a Jerome Williams (is he even still in the picture?) at least superfluous so far as the starting staff is concerned.

Vargas was better at striking out righties than lefties, but lefties hit him worse last year than righties. A big red flag, though was his home and away splits, where he earned a 2.74 ERA in Safeco but a 4.78 ERA on the road, almost twice as high. Still, I can grit my teeth through the road if his 2.27 career ERA at Angel Stadium is any indication of how he'll pitch. Welcome aboard, and go Dirtbags!

Update: Weird paragraph from this Alden Gonzalez piece at MLB.com:

The Angels used the flexibility afforded to them with the Josh Hamilton signing, sending switch-hitting designated hitter Kendrys Morales to the Mariners on Wednesday in exchange for left-handed starting pitcher Jason Vargas.

Usually when one discusses "flexibility", the word "payroll" is in the same sentence. While the Dodgers have gotten all the press for the spendy spendy, Jerry Dipoto hasn't exactly taken his foot of the fiscal gas pedal, either.

Labels: angels, hot stove, mariners, trades, transactions

If I told you the Josh Hamilton deal was really, really bad, you wouldn't be surprised, right? BPro's Ben Lindbergh, at ESPN Insider:

Because Hamilton doesn't add any value via the walk, most of his offensive performance hinges on what happens when he makes contact. The outcome of a batted ball is dependent on two things: speed and quality of contact. The early 30s are when bat speed starts to slip and reaction time suffers. If Hamilton had better command of the strike zone, his ability to take walks could compensate for his inevitable declines in other areas. As it is, his offensive value is closely tied to skills that soon start to fade in free agents of a certain age.

Which is to say, yes, very, very bad. He's like buying into Vlad Guerrero with more off-the-field problems, way lower walk rate, and starting with his age 32 season. Or maybe Vernon Wells would be a better comp, at least on the field. Regardless, Hamilton's on schedule for a 3.4 WARP season in 2013 according to PECOTA, which figures to be a pretty lousy bet for the kind of money the Angels are throwing at the problem. The always readable Sam Miller exits thusly:

Jerry Dipoto has been the Angels’ general manager for 13 months, and he has now made a whopping 13 moves at the big-league level. He has shown two skills that can make for a great GM: he’s great at picking up small pieces (especially in the bullpen) for cheap, and he’s great at making the big deal happen, which can be as easy as but also much more difficult than "offer the most money." Those big ones are the moves that get GMs into trouble. From a surplus-value calculation, the Albert Pujols deal alone threatens to undo all the other small, savvy moves Dipoto has made. Yes, the Angels have the money to outrun that mistake, and they have the money to outrun the Josh Hamilton mistake, if it is one. But avoiding the mistake in the first place would be best.

That, from his track record thus far, seems unlikely.

Labels: angels, hot stove, transactions

$125M/5 years, no I can't.

WTF ARTE IS WRONG WITH YOU???

Labels: angels, hot stove, transactions

As always, Baseball Prospectus' Maury Brown is worth reading. Today's piece is about the Yankees and their focus on getting team payroll below the $189M mark (all emboldening is mine):

It works like this: for each year of the labor agreement, the top 15 clubs by market size are disqualified from receiving a growing percentage of net revenue-sharing proceeds they otherwise would have been entitled to. However (and here’s where the Yankees fit in), the CBA provides a clause by which these revenue-sharing funds are rebated for clubs that don’t break the luxury tax ceiling. The percentage of the revenue-sharing rebate that gets penalized if a team breaks the luxury tax ceiling escalates for each consecutive year: 25 percent for the first offense, then 50 percent, 75 percent, and eventually none of it comes back depending on how many years in a row the team blows through the luxury tax ceiling. It’s this escalating tax rate in two locations (the tax you get hit with for going over the luxury tax ceiling on top of the percentage of revenue-sharing held for being a top 15 market club) that can add extra pain to the Yankees’ wallet.

The Yankees seem committed to restraining their expenditures somewhat, a matter complicated by injuries to Mariano Rivera, Alex Rodriguez, and Derek Jeter; Jeter and Rivera will be off the books at the end of 2013, but A-Rod goes through 2017. Meantime, the Dodgers are adding years and dollars in an environment entirely hostile to that. As Brown notes in his closing graf, "the league may be setting its sights a coast away on the Dodgers, who will almost certainly break the luxury tax threshold next season and likely a few more to come." There are pluses and minuses to be had with being the league's biggest spender for the foreseeable future, especially with the Wilpons hamstrung — whether they want to admit it or not — by the outcome of the Maddoff fraud case. This is certainly a considerable minus.

Update: FB pal Johnny Patterson PM'd me to remind me that only the first $84M of local TV revenue would be subject to revenue sharing. However, and that said, this appears to be only about local TV revenue sharing, and not payroll luxury tax.

Labels: dodgers

• Over the weekend, the Dodgers signed Korean lefty Hyun-Jin Ryu for the insane figure of $62M. At least, that's the figure MLB.com's Ken Gurnick provides; the LAT claims it's only $36M to the pitcher and the balance as a posting fee to his Korean team. In addition, MSTI records that he has $1M annually in performance bonuses available. Not following Korean ball, I don't know for sure but that seems like that posting fee has to be some sort of record for anyone out of that country.

  Ryu profiles as a starter, and had a 98-52 record with a 2.80 earned-run average with Hanwha. I don't know enough about him to know how well he'll translate to the majors, but it appears that he may have been the best Asian pitcher available this offseason. A different viewpoint comes from the always-interesting Fangraphs. Eno Sarris writes

  Of course, Ryu’s changeup is his best pitch, while Wells was known for his curveball. You can scout Ryu yourself with this youtube playlist put together by Dan at MyKBO.net if you like (The video embedded below probably has the best angle). And it’s a little early to say that Ryu has a four-pitch mix like wells. He throws four pitches, yes, but by most accounts, his slider is not exciting and his curveball may just be a lefty-on-lefty type of pitch that won’t solve a platoon issue if righties like his changeup.

  Sarris doubts Ryu will survive all six years in the rotation.
• The big signing of the weekend, of course, has to be former Angel Zach Greinke, with the Dodgers opening an apparently bottomless spigot of money for a $147M/6-year deal, according to early reports in the Times. Apparently, also, he can exit the deal after three years, which the Dodgers would hope he does if he stinks (much like J.D. Drew did, to the Dodgers' relief).

  I try, as a matter of principle, to avoid getting too excited about any particular signing, one way or another. Usually with free agents, I'm skeptical, and this case is no exception. Greinke was actually pretty good for the Angels late in 2012, but not enough of a difference-maker to salvage a lost season. He at least has been healthy; MSTI was thrilled, given that the next step down was Kyle Lohse. Gah. Not a ringing endorsement, but it has its limited advantages.

Labels: dodgers, hot stove, transactions

Pointed out to me lately by Bleed Cubbie Blue's Al Yellon, a fascinating look at old baseball stadiums, and stadiums proposed but never built. Of particular interest among the latter here:

• Wrigley Field (Los Angeles) expansion that would have extended the outfield and upper deck to wrap all the way around the park. The Dodgers instead elected to play temporarily at the Coliseum.
• The Buckminster Fuller-inspired Brooklyn Dome, which would have been the first of its kind.
• A different Angels Stadium that would have been situated in the abandoned Baldwin Hills Dam site.
• Here's one that sounds like an Irwin Allen movie waiting to happen: a stadium floating in Mission Bay in San Diego.

For a different take on old baseball parks, here's my Space Ghosts (AL) and NL editions.

Labels: angels, dodgers, history